U.S. patent number 5,066,853 [Application Number 07/247,085] was granted by the patent office on 1991-11-19 for system for reserving a supply of goods or services.
This patent grant is currently assigned to SGS Thomson Microelectronics SA. Invention is credited to Pierre Brisson.
United States Patent |
5,066,853 |
Brisson |
November 19, 1991 |
System for reserving a supply of goods or services
Abstract
To reserve a supply of a good or service, a chip type memory
card is inserted into a terminal of a reserving device. This
reserving device makes the reservation by sending indications about
this reservation to a terminal located near the goods or services
to be delivered. On the agreed date and at the agreed place, the
renting party goes to this terminal and inserts his memory card
therein. The terminal then tells him where and how he should get
and use the service or good reserved by him. This system can be
applied in particular when the good or service to be obtained by
self-service concerns the renting of a vehicle.
Inventors: |
Brisson; Pierre (Meyrargues,
FR) |
Assignee: |
SGS Thomson Microelectronics SA
(Gentilly, FR)
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Family
ID: |
9355075 |
Appl.
No.: |
07/247,085 |
Filed: |
September 20, 1988 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
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Sep 21, 1987 [FR] |
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87 13017 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
235/381; 235/384;
235/375 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G07F
7/0866 (20130101); G06Q 20/341 (20130101); G06Q
20/363 (20130101); G06Q 20/4093 (20130101); G07C
9/29 (20200101); G07B 15/04 (20130101); G06Q
10/02 (20130101); G07F 7/1008 (20130101); G06Q
20/127 (20130101); G07F 17/0042 (20130101); G07F
17/24 (20130101); G07F 17/0014 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G07B
15/02 (20060101); G07B 15/04 (20060101); G07C
9/00 (20060101); G07F 7/08 (20060101); G07F
7/10 (20060101); G06Q 10/00 (20060101); G07F
7/00 (20060101); G06F 015/21 (); G06F 007/10 () |
Field of
Search: |
;235/380,381,382,384,375
;364/749 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Foreign Patent Documents
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2503423 |
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Aug 1982 |
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FR |
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2178211 |
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Feb 1987 |
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GB |
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Primary Examiner: Trafton; David
Assistant Examiner: Weinberg; Richard M.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Plottel; Roland
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A system for reserving the supply of a good or service to be
obtained by self-service, said system comprising
chip cards assigned to customers of said good or service,
a central reservation device having a card reading apparatus
designed to receive a customer card during a reservation operation,
and interface means for communication with a customer, said central
reservation system capable of writing in the card information
relating to a reservation made by the owner of the card through
said interface means,
local terminals connected to said central reservation device and
remote from said central reservation device, said local terminals
adapted to receive a customer card,
means associated with and controlled by each of said local
terminals for physically delivering said good or service near said
local terminal in response to information stored in the same card
with which reservation of the good or service has been made,
wherein means are provided at said local terminal to write in the
card an access key for one specific good or service among the
available goods or services at that local terminal,
said means for physically delivering a good or service comprise a
card reading apparatus located at a remote place from said local
terminal where said specific good or service is available, and
means for enabling delivery of said specific good or service in
response to reading said access key from the card in said last
mentioned card reading apparatus.
2. A system according to claim 1, wherein means are provided at
said local terminal to display for the customer information
relative to the specific good or service, while writing in the card
an access key for that specific good or service.
3. A system according to claim 2, wherein said means to display
information comprises means for displaying information relative to
the place where said specific good or service is available.
4. A system for car rental reservation, according to one of claims
1 to 3, wherein said good or service is a vehicle, and said means
for enabling delivery of said vehicle comprise a barrier at a
parking place allocated to a specific vehicle and/or means for
opening a door of said specific vehicle, and/or means for enabling
ignition of said vehicle.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
An object of the present invention is a system to reserve a supply
of goods or services to be obtained by self-service. This system of
reservation is preferably one giving access to the supply of goods
or services of a commercial type such as car rental or train seat
reservation services. This system is more especially designed for
suppliers of services providing their customers with services whose
availability is not always entirely within their control. The
system of the invention includes the use and operation of memory
cards distributed by this supplier of services to his customers.
These memory cards may be magnetic recording cards. They are
preferably memory cards furnished with electronic integrated
circuits, called chip cards, to ensure the safety of the
transactions for which they are used.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although car rental services need not be considered to be the only
field of application of the invention, it shall be used as an
example to demonstrate the drawbacks of such systems and the
solutions brought to them by the invention. Car rental systems and
the long drawn out administrative formalities that this service
necessitates are well known. For, it is essential to identify the
future driver of the rented car, especially to take down his
driving license number, firstly in order to establish a
relationship of responsibility between the rental firm and the
driver and, secondly, as an option, to offer him or her
personalized services such as insurance or special reductions. To
speed up these formalities and also to create loyal customers,
certain rental firms have taken to giving those customers who wish
it, cards which are pre-recorded either mechanically or
magnetically and have all the indications needed to identify these
customers. Upon reaching his destination, generally at an airport
or a railway station, a customer goes to the counter of the rental
firm with which he is affiliated. There he fills in a rental form
with the rental firm's agent by handing him his card. Besides, in
many cases, customers with cards have priority over those without
them. At the end of these formalities the rental firm's agent gives
the customer the keys of the car that he has just hired and has had
allocated to him, and tells him what car it is and where it is in a
parking lot.
There are many problems with reserving cars. Essentially, unlike
the practice in railway transport for example, it is never certain
that the service, namely the car, will be available. For, previous
customers might have decided to extend the period for which they
had undertaken to hire a car. Furthermore, it often happens that a
customer takes charge of a vehicle in one place and returns it to
the rental firm in another place. By increasing the the rental
firm's fleet of vehicles, these problems of availability can be
solved statistically. However, while it could then be supposed that
the demand can be met on the whole, vehicles that have actually
been returned on time and are available at a parking place cannot
be handed over to customers without human action.
Thus, the advance reservation of a vehicle at a given place and on
a given date does not truly correspond to a reservation. For, it
does not prevent the customer from having to stand in a queue
consisting of all those who have also made reservations and have
come to the rental firm's counter to get information about the
renting of the vehicles allocated to them. The indispensable
presence of staff responsible for making the vehicles available
increases the cost of renting vehicles. Furthermore, the fact that
the vehicles in question are often taken at late hours and even at
night entails exacting work. And the additional cost related to
work done outside normal working times also increases the cost of
renting a vehicle. The solution wherein the rental firm's staff
work in the daytime to maintain returned vehicles, for example,
cannot be envisaged with a system of this type.
An object of the invention is to overcome this drawback by
proposing a system wherein, to make the reservation, identify the
renting party and, especially, to provide access to the supply of
the reserved good or service, a memory card is used having
interactive links with the reservation system and with means of
access to this good or service. Thus, once the reservation is made,
the reservation system or card, or even both, contain information
relating to the reservation. Later, when the supplied service or
good is taken, for example when the renting party goes and takes
charge of the rented car, he inserts his card into a terminal of
the reservation device near the place where he will take the
supplied good or service. This terminal tells him where and how to
find the car allocated to him. The place in which the car is parked
can be displayed on an indicating panel connected to the terminal.
In a preferred way, the "how" function is achieved by creating
recognition protocols, at the instant when the card is inserted,
between this card and a post for access to the good or service.
This protocols may consist in the addition of an electronic key to
the card in such a way that, near the designated vehicle, the
customer inserts his card into an access post called a vehicle
releasing post or, more generally, a post to release the supply or
a good or service, which physically gives him access to the good or
service. Preferably, the chip card will play the role of a key that
opens the doors of the vehicle, and that of a switch key to start
this vehicle.
When the rental period is over, the renting party will place the
car that he has used in a parking place belonging to the rental
firm, and will block all access to this vehicle by inserting his
card into the releasing post associated with this parking place. A
barrier controlled by the releasing terminal is then lowered while
the post may issue a receipt concerning the characteristics of the
service provided, in particular its duration. This post can also be
used to introduce these characteristics in a suitable zone of the
memory card.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the invention, therefore, is a system for reserving
the supply of a good or service to be obtained by self-service,
said system comprising memory cards assigned to customers for the
good or service supplied and a reservation device designed to
receive the cards during the reservation operation and to make the
reservation, wherein the memory cards are chip cards and wherein
the system comprises means for the physical delivery of the good or
service supplied, functionally linked to the reservation device and
provided with means to be put into operation by the card with which
the reservation has been made.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
The invention will be better understood from the following
description and the accompanying figure. This figure is given
purely by way of indication and in no way restricts the scope of
the invention.
DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The single FIG. 1 gives a schematic view of a system, according to
the invention, for reserving a supply of a good or service to be
obtained by self-service. This system has at least one memory card
1, allocated to a customer, and a reservation device 2 to receive,
in a card reader 3 of a terminal 4 of this device, the card 1
during a reservation operation. The memory card 1 is a so-called
chip card: it is provided with electronic integrated circuits for
memorizing and interaction. During the reservation, the
identification of the customer contained in a memory zone 5 of the
card 1 is immediately transmitted to a central processing unit 6 of
the reservation device 2. To make the reservation, the future
renting party uses, for example, a keyboard 7 of the terminal 4, to
program the characteristics of his rental requirements. For
example, he indicates the date and time when he wishes to have the
vehicle available, the place where he will take it, the type of
vehicle desired as well as, as the case may be, the nature of his
trip and the insurance terms he is willing to accept. In certain
circumstances, several of these indications can be pre-recorded in
the card and automatically sent to the central processing unit 6.
If the reservation can be accepted, for example by comparing the
set of similar reservations already made with an index (which may
or may not be statistical) of the availability of rented vehicles,
a set of indicator lights 70 and 71 indicates this to the customer.
The customer then validates the reservation through the keyboard
7.
The reservation system of the invention is chiefly characterized by
the existence, at the place where the good or service is supplied,
of means 8 giving access to the reserved good or service, for
example, in this case, a vehicle 9. In the example shown, the means
of access comprise a terminal 10 functionally connected by a
transmission link 11 to the reservation device 2. The transmission
link 11 may be of the radio or telephonic type. It can be done
immediately after the reservation or else by direct link, capable
of being called up by request. In the former case, the terminal 10
has memory means. In all cases, the terminal 10 has a memory card
reader 12. When the renting party reaches the place where he wishes
to rent the vehicle, he inserts his card 1 into the reader 12. The
terminal 10 then recognizes the nature of the reservation and
informs this renting party, by means of a neighboring indicator
panel 12, that the vehicle 9 which has been allocated to him is in
a given place in the car park. If need be, the indicator panel 13
can also give indications to show the renting party the way to this
place.
However, the terminal 12 is actually more powerful. At this moment,
it also creates a protocol common to the card 1 and to a releasing
post 14 of the vehicle 9. This releasing post 14 makes it possible
to physically retain the vehicle 9. It is at the position indicated
by the panel 13. More simply, this access post may take the form of
an electronic lock 140 to the doors of the vehicle 9 and/or a
device (not shown) to start up the vehicle by means of the card 1.
In one example, this protocol consists of a logic key. For example,
it comprises the recording of a digital code in a memory zone 15 of
the card before this card is given to the renting party. After
taking the card given to him by the terminal 10, the renting goes
near the vehicle 9 to which the access may be controlled by a
barrier 16 controlled by the post 14 and/or by doors of this
vehicle controlled by the lock 140. The post 14 and/or the lock 140
also have a memory card reader 17. The renter inserts his card into
the reader 17. Logic means contained in the terminal 14 and/or the
lock 140 then recognize the protocol created by the terminal 12 and
cause the barrier 16 to tilt or, as the case may be, the doors to
open. The tilting of the barrier 16 may also be coupled
electrically or mechanically with the opening of a box 18
containing the keys of the car 9. After enabling the doors to be
opened, the card 1 also enables the car to be started with the
switch key. Thus, access to this service has been obtained entirely
automatically.
The creation of the protocol at the last moment can be justified
with respect to the phenomenon of the rental system itself. By
creating a releasing protocol as soon as the reservation is made,
using means which shall be examined further below and which
comprise a direct link between the posts 14 and the central
processing unit 6, the creation of this protocol in the terminal 10
could have been avoided. However, this would amount to overlooking
cancelled reservations, changed decisions by previous renting
parties or, even if everybody could not get service, it would
amount to overlooking the order of priority of arriving customers
with respect to vehicles and, especially, the actual presence of
vehicles at the positions controlled by the posts. In these
conditions, it would be wiser to allocate the vehicle at the last
minute, namely when the renting party is about to take actual
charge of the vehicle.
The invention reconciles the need to give the renting party the
information necessary to the renting operation vehicle and the need
to give him a key providing access to this rental at the last
moment with the fact that this information and this access are not
known at the time of reservation. If the terminal 10 has no
programmed means to define the protocol, it enters into
communication, at this moment, with the central processing unit 2
which defines the protocol.
The fact that the protocol takes the form of the loading of a logic
key in the memory card 1 prevents the need to connect each post 14
to the terminal 12. Under these conditions, the posts and the
terminal can be independent. It is enough for the terminal 10 to
allocate, as the logic key, the known key of the terminal 10
corresponding to the post 14 to which the customer is asked to go.
As an alternative, the chip-type memory cards may not be provided
with a key-loading zone 15. In this case, no logic key is loaded in
these zones, but characteristics pertaining to the identification
of the renting party who will reach the post is sent by the link
19, shown with dashes, to the concerned post. When the renting
party nears this post and inserts his card therein, the post
recognizes his identity (rather than its own logic key). The
barrier 16 opens under the same conditions.
In a preferred way, the terminal 10 also has a programming key 20
enabling any renting parties who have cards but have not made
reservations to reserve and rent a car at the same time at the very
place where they are renting it. Inasmuch as the fleet of vehicles
managed by this terminal 10 may not have any more unreserved,
available vehicles, this terminal 10, upon receiving this request,
could cause information to be displayed on the panel 13, enabling
the renting party to find another solution.
When the renting party has finished using the vehicle, he drives it
back to a parking place belonging to the rental firm. He parks the
vehicle in an available place which has its barrier 21 of the post
22 initially lifted. All he has to do then is to insert his card in
the reader 23 of the post 22 to cause the barrier 21 to be closed
and to obtain a receipt 24 issued by the post 23. The receipt will
indicate, for example, the characteristics of the service supplied
to him, notably its duration. The issuing of the receipt can be
replaced or accompanied by the loading of characteristics of the
service supplied in a memory zone 25 of the card 1. Of course, the
customer puts back the keys of the car in the box of the barrier 21
before inserting his card. The post may also have a logic function
preventing the barrier 21 from being closed for as long as the car
keys have not been put back in its box. When the card 1 itself acts
as the switch key, the access to the car is blocked more
easily.
If the posts 14 or 22 are not connected to the terminal 10, the
renting party may subsequently be asked to reinsert his card again
in the terminal 10 so that this terminal can transmit the
characteristics of rental service provided to a rental management
department. These characteristics are contained in the memory zone
25 of the card 1. If necessary, the customer may be asked to
program, through a keyboard 20, the number of kilometers travelled
as well as any breakdowns suffered by him. As a preferred
alternative, an on-board computer 26 of the vehicle which has
received the card 1 may insert all these indications in the zone 25
to enable this automatic transmission. If, on the contrary, the
posts 14 and 22 are connected by a bus 19, the characteristics of
the rental operation may be transmitted automatically from the
place where the car is returned. If necessary, the posts 22 may be
provided with keyboards used to enable the programming of the
kilometers travelled if the vehicles do not have any on-board
computer. In both cases, whether the terminals are connected to the
terminal 10 or not, it is thus seen to it that the terminal has all
the data needed to manage its actually available fleet of
vehicles.
* * * * *